SPOKANE — The first salvo in the war of words between the Everett Silvertips and Spokane Chiefs over diving was lobbed by Spokane coach Don Nachbaur.
On Thursday, Everett coach Kevin Constantine fired back.
Constantine voiced some pointed words on the subject of embellishment during Thursday’s off day in the first-round playoff series between the Tips and Chiefs.
Rule 64.1 of the WHL rulebook states that, “Any player or goalkeeper who dives, embellishes a fall or a reaction, or who feigns an injury shall be penalized with a minor penalty for ‘embellishment.’”
Nachbaur insinuated Everett was guilty of embellishing following the Tips’ 5-1 victory in Game 1 of the series last Friday in Everett.
“We had to battle a lot of circumstances with penalties and we’re going to miss (players to time in the penalty box) because they go down,” Nachbaur told the The Spokesman-Review following Game 1. “They go down and we’re going to see more of that.”
Everett was indeed whistled for a stand-alone embellishment call during the first overtime of the Tips’ 2-1 double-overtime victory in Wednesday’s Game 3 in Spokane, which gave Everett a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series. Tips leading scorer Nikita Scherbak was dinged for diving midway through the period, and it was the only penalty called during the two overtime periods.
But during preparations for Friday’s Game 4 in Spokane, Constantine not only defended his team, he countered by claiming the Chiefs were the ones embellishing.
“Their diving and their flopping to me has almost turned into an Olympic sport,” Constantine said Thursday morning during practice at Spokane Arena. “It was very evident, it was epidemic in the game (Wednesday) night.
“I think a couple players on our team over the course of the season gave us a false team reputation of going down easy,” Constantine added. “Our team has never promoted that or done that, even though there’s a couple players who have done it a little. It’s nothing compared to what Spokane has done in the first three games.”
The first three contests of the series were riddled by penalties. Game 1 saw the teams combine for 156 penalty minutes, with Everett receiving eight power plays and Spokane receiving four. Game 2 was more of the same, with 60 minutes of penalties called and Spokane getting nine power plays to seven for Everett. Those numbers diminished in a more closely-contested Game 3 as there were just 16 penalty minutes, with both teams receiving four advantages.
Spokane has motivation for turning the series into a special-teams battle. Everett finished 23 points ahead of the Chiefs in the standings during the regular season. However, Spokane had some of the best special teams in the league, finishing fourth on the power play at 23.7 percent and tied for third on the penalty kill at 82.6 percent. The Chiefs were even better on the power play in games against Everett, converting at 34.8 percent versus a Tips penalty kill that struggled throughout the regular season.
As a result, Constantine believes Spokane is doing everything within its power to encourage special teams play.
“They, as a team, conspired to turn this into a flopping contest,” Constantine said. “You could pick out 10 times before what happened with Scherbak in overtime — 10 times — where they just purposely dropped to the ice. I don’t debate that Scherbak, in the case of the overtime penalty, might have tried to encourage the ref to make a call the other way and got called for it. But that call that was made on Scherbak should have been called on Spokane 10 times prior to that call being made. I could show you the 10 times (on video) right now.
“To me it’s a bit comical and a bit frustrating how much Spokane is just flopping all over the ice,” Constantine continued. “I think it’s a travesty to the game, I think it’s bad for the game that they’re doing that, and I hope the officiating can stay on top of them doing that.”
As for Wednesday’s marathon victory — it was the second-longest game in Silvertips franchise history — Constantine was happy his team received reward for its efforts.
“I thought we probably played our hardest of the three games in terms of the playoff style of aggressive, competitive hockey you’ve got to play,” Constantine said. “I thought it was our best game in terms of that. We got off to a pretty good start, we don’t seem to be able to convert those into goals as much as you’d like — in all three games they had the first goal. But the bottom line is are you working hard enough to give yourself chances? I thought we did through probably two-and-a-half periods. Then I thought they took over the last half of the third and the first overtime, I thought they were much better in that part of it. We got good goaltending (from Carter Hart, who made 45 saves) when we needed to, and we got the OT goal. Based on how we played in the first 40 I thought we deserved something out of the game, so it was nice to get a win for how hard our guys worked.”
Slap shots
Everett defenseman Ben Betker took part in Thursday morning’s informal practice at Spokane Arena. Betker, an overager who’s a stalwart member of Everett’s defense, missed most of Game 2 and all of Game 3 because of an upper-body injury. He continues to be listed as day-to-day. Betker’s absence in Game 3 was alleviated by the return of defenseman Tristen Pfeifer to the lineup. Pfeifer, who missed more than a month because of an upper-body injury of his own, played well upon his return. … The Tips used the off day to announce the signing of prospect forward Spencer Gerth. Gerth, a big (6-foot-3, 200 pounds) 16-year-old winger from Langley, B.C., went unselected in the 2013 bantam draft and was added to Everett’s protected list last season. This season he had eight goals, 14 assists and 69 penalty minutes in 52 games with the Golden Rockets of the junior B Kootenay International Junior Hockey League. He recently spent a couple weeks practicing with the Tips.
Check out Nick Patterson’s Silvertips blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/silvertipsblog, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
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